This invention relates to louvered ceilings, that is, false ceilings comprising louvers and supporting runners which are suspended below a normal ceiling, the louvers being panels of intersecting slat members (usually in an "egg-crate" construction) forming open cells therebetween, through which light may pass from light sources located between the louvered ceiling and the actual ceiling. More particularly, it relates to an improvement in the manner of suspending the louvers from their supporting runners.
In modern louvered ceilings, the louver slot members and runners are sometimes not solid material but are channel, that is, U-shaped in cross section with a base and two sidewalls. If the channel is used with its opening facing upward, it presents the appearance of a solid slat, but it is lighter in weight, easier to assemble, and more economical of materials.
Commonly, louvers may be supported on the runners by hooking on or hanging on to them. That is, the runner has holes or slots into which are inserted portions of the louver slat members. In one typical arrangement, the runner slots extend down from the top of the runner, and hooks or protrusions on the sides of the louver panel (that is, on the ends of the slat members), are simply dropped into the slots from above. In this case the slots may be tapered, that is, wider at the top, for easier assembly of the system.
A common problem with louvered ceilings is that when the louvers are assembled onto the runners, the joints or slots between the louver slat members and the runners leak light. This is an especial problem when the louver slat members are channel members, and more especially when the runner and louver material has a reflective metal surface, for then reflections both inside and outside the channel tend to emphasize the leaks.
One construction that has been proposed to solve the above problem is the ceiling described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,034,534 to Taylor. In that ceiling, the louvers and runners are made of channel section, and the louver channel members have hook-shaped extensions which drop into upwardly opening slots in the runners as described above. The light leak problem is solved by providing only one sidewall of each channel member with a hook-shaped extension, which drops into a narrow slot in the runner sidewall. The runner slot has a vertical edge meeting the outside face of this wall of the channel member. Thus that joint is light-tight even though the slot is tapered, for the gap at the top of the slot is located between the two walls of the channel member. The opposite wall of the slot member ends in a straight vertical edge which abuts the outside face of the wall of the runner. Thus that joint is also light-tight. Where louvers are to hang on both sides of a runner, the runner slots are not directly opposed, but are offset by a distance equal to the distance between the sidewalls of the channel members.
This construction suffers from a lack of robustness. For one thing, the individual channel-member-to-runner interlock depends upon the hooking of only one channel member sidewall into the runner slot. Since the intersecting louver channel members are joined with an interlocking "egg-crate" construction, looseness in the joints may permit the members to lose their mutual perpendicularity somewhat. Of more importance is the fact that the light-tightness of this system depends on the exact abutting of the outside face of one channel member sidewall to the vertical side of the runner slot, and also upon the exact abutting of the end of the other channel member sidewall to the outside face of the runner wall. Should any of the ends of the channel member sidewalls be bent during shipment or installation of the system, the esthetic integrity of the ceiling may be compromised.